Kamesh Ramakrishna Aiyer

(formerly Kamesh Ramakrishna)

617-335-1520 (cell)

617-735-1863 (h)

204 Pleasant Street

Brookline, MA 02446

 

Short Bio

 

Kamesh Aiyer has been on the leading edge of technology developments for over two decades of professional life in Information Technology.  Recently, as CIO and co-founder of Kriticka, Inc., he was a member of the core management team developing business strategy while also responsible for putting together a small, extreme programming team that designed and implemented the kLabel™ (http://www.kriticka.com/kLabel) web application.  He was recruited away from Bizland Inc., where he was Director of Technology Integration, to be CIO for Kriticka, Inc., so he was at Bizland only for 2 months, and left on friendly terms.  Despite the short stint, he accomplished some significant goals -- he hired his replacement; he managed and directed the redesign of the source code (web content management system source, perl scripts, other scripts) so that large-scale private labeling of the Bizland website would be deliverable; he was responsible for the technical delivery of a private-labeled version to 3Com Corporation (http://www.3comsbc.com); he was responsible for reviewing alliance agreements to ensure that the technical components would support corporate strategy.

 

Before Bizland, as principal in Kashi Software Architects, he was responsible for a variety of projects with startups and with established companies that required taking the lead in planning, design, customer interaction, and implementation of technology projects.  He has been part of a team building the online brokerage system for FarSight, a subsidiary of D.E. Shaw &Co., a major New York-based hedge fund; he was Architect for Motif 2.0 at the Open Software Foundation where he was the designer for five new widget classes, the new API for bi-directional multi-lingual string management, and an extended language for user interface specification.  He also managed the technical relations with external developers (IBM, Digital/Compaq, CA, and Lotus), as well as coordinated and lead design group meetings.  At Credit Suisse First Boston in mid-town New York, he designed and implemented a reliable, real-time trading system for commercial paper, which enabled to double its trading volume within three weeks of deployment.

 

During the eighties, Kamesh focused on building Expert Systems and Knowledge-based systems -- he was a member of one of the premier industrial research teams at Digital Equipment Corporation.  His Ph.D. in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and User Interface Systems was for work done with Dr. Allen Newell, one of the founders of AI, at Carnegie-Mellon University's School of Computer Science.  Kamesh has a BS in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, where he was second in his graduating class of about 300 students.  He has three patents to his name for discrimination nets used in fast pattern matching.

 

 

Current Objectives

As a key member of the management team, establish enterprise strategy; as a technical leader, design, manage, and develop reliable, robust, real-time, high-performance software systems.  I want to be in an exciting technology-driven environment where I can bring to bear my knowledge of software technology and development, my analytical and quantitative skills, and my understanding of strategy, gained by experience in startups, small companies, and large businesses.

 

Educational/Professional Achievements

      Ph.D., 1981,
School of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University.
Advisor: Professor Allen Newell.
Area: Artificial Intelligence and Human Factors.

      BS (Electrical Engineering), 1974,
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India.
Second in a graduating class of 300.

      At Digital, 1988-90:
Received 3 patents for innovations in discrimination nets for fast pattern matching.

      Team leader, Architect, Senior Developer:
Java, HTML/HTTP, Microsoft ASP on Windows 2000, Javascript,
C++ (Windows and Unix), CORBA (Visibroker), Email protocols (SMTP, POP, etc.),
Unix, X, Motif

 

Skills

·         Business Strategy and Product Development:  Understand and support for developing corporate IT strategy

·         At Kriticka: Lead the implementation team that built kLabel™ , a web-enabled system for collaborative development of product packaging and labels; Responsible for developing and evolving the key ideas in the business plan

·         At Benchmarking Partners: Lead the technical team of a Fortune 200 company selecting its enterprise software;  Responsible for evaluating the responses to the RFP from vendors for a multi-year, multi-million, 40-country system; Advised software development companies on positioning in the financial applications market; Conducted and authored a survey of data warehousing technology, the players, and its maturity.

·         Financial Services: Understand how the industry works and how software supports key players

·         At FarSight, designed a CORBA-based API for linking a clearing system with the core database of the FarSight broker-dealer.  Lead the team that rolled out this API for “importing” new clients into FarSight.

·         At Credit Suisse First Boston, one of the largest bond trading floors in the world, designed and implemented reliable, real-time trading system for commercial paper, that doubled its trading volume within three weeks of deployment.

·         Technology: Understand customer needs elicitation, and design and development of software.

·         At the Open Software Foundation: Architect for Motif 2.0; Responsible for overall design as well as five new widget classes, the new API for bi-directional multi-lingual string management, and an extended language for user interface specification; Managed the technical relations with external developers (IBM, DEC, CA, and Lotus), as well as coordinated and lead design group meetings.

·         At Digital: Awarded 3 patents for innovations in discrimination nets for fast pattern matching.

·         Management:  Skilled Team Leader, mentor, architect, and software project manager

·         At Bizland: Delivered a private-label web-site to 3Com, Inc., within 1 month of joining the company; Hired software development team and manager for QA team; Redesigned the source code so that private labeling and customization could be significantly automated

 

Employment History/Accomplishments

 

October 2001 (Current):         Principal, Kashi Software Architect

(Project in progress – Website for a national non-profit organization)

 

July 2000 to September 2001: co-founder and CIO, Kriticka, Inc., Framingham, MA

1.       Responsible for the development of the business plan, presentation to VCs, and leading technical meetings with key customers.

2.       Responsible for designing and implementing kLabel™, a web-enabled, knowledge-based collaboration system for developing packages and labels for product development teams.

 

May 2000 to June 2000:   Director, Technology Integration, Bizland, Inc., Burlington, MA.

1.       Delivered a private label version of the Bizland web-site to 3Com, Inc., within 1 month of joining the company.

2.       Redesigned the core content source system organization (content management, source code, scripts, etc.) so that private labeling and customization could be significantly simplified.

 

June 1999 to (on-going):   Industry Consultant and Principal, Kashi Software Architects, Inc., Brookline, MA.

1.       Hands-on leader of the technical team for a legacy middleware-to-CORBA migration prototype for United Health Group.

2.       Planned Product and Technical strategy for a financial services industry startup

3.       Worked with two internet startups developing their product plan

4.       Advised MIT/Sloan School school students and faculty on business potential of venture plans

 

Mar 1998 to Jan 1999:     Staff Member, D. E. Shaw & Co. L. P. (a hedge fund company), Cambridge, MA.

1.       Lead Architect for the back-end public API (called ICE) to financial clearinghouses.

2.       Team Leader implementing ICE for importing new clients with current accounts with other broker-dealers.

 

Jan 1997 to Jan 1998:      Architect, Software.com (a high-performance email company), Lexington, MA.

1.       Member of the Architecture team responsible for reviewing and approving plans for proposed requirements, functional specifications, high-level designs and architecture.

2.       Designed and implemented a number of different software system components on a tight delivery schedule:

·         System for out-sourced intranet administration and support implemented with a Web UI and a back-end to a variety of database systems.

·         Designed and developed a test-bed for studying the performance of high-end email systems implemented in Java.

·         Migrating mail from different e-mail systems to the InterMail message store while in active operation.

·         Responsible for thoroughly testing the InterMail 3.0 release and installation package at the last moment.

 

Mar 1996 to Dec 1996:           Sr. Industry Analyst, Benchmarking Partners, Cambridge, MA

1.       Consultant to CIO and global IS staff of large multi-national retail company on global, multi-site ERP software selection.

2.       Advised software development companies on positioning their products for the financial industry.

3.       Developed key report on Decision Base (Data Warehousing) Software.

4.       Reviewed early drafts of Collaborative Forecasting and Replenishment protocol and proposed key modifications to the architecture and design for improved performance.

5.      As account Manager for key database vendor client, helped develop ERP alliance strategy.

 

July 1994 to March 1996:       Vice President, Fixed Income Trading Technologies, Credit Suisse First Boston, NY, NY

1.       The highly successful real-time Commercial Paper trading system that my team developed was the basis for a government bond trading system and other trading systems development at CSFB.

2.       Architect and developer for a toolkit consisting of a set of classes for a Model-View-Controller application framework in C++. This toolkit implements the calling mechanism correctly so that the most common programming errors get detected at compile-time rather than at run-time (as happened with the MVC implementations then available on the market).

3.       Consulted for five different groups of application developers (about 120 developers) on problems with using Unix system calls, Motif, X Window system, C++, Third-party widget libraries, Third-party C++ class libraries, Postscript, SQR, etc..

4.       Published a User Interface Style Guide for use by the application developers.

 

Sept 1992 to June 1994:    Senior Technical Consultant, Open Software Foundation, Cambridge, MA

1.       Co-authored the joint CUA v2.0 and Motif v2.0 Style Guide. This is a comprehensive document that covers the usage of the various user interface components of Motif (and the next version of IBM’s CUA) as well as a critical resource for user interface design (with Ellis Cohen).

2.       Architect for Motif v2.0, released in August 1994. I was responsible for the design of five new widget classes, a new API for bi-directional multi-lingual string management, the design of an extended language for user interface specification, and the overall design of the system. I managed the technical relations with external developers (IBM, DEC, CA, and Lotus), as well as coordinated and lead design group meetings.

3.       Obtained approval of Motif as an international IEEE standard (P1295) and played a significant role in the submission of Motif to X/Open as part of the Common Desktop Environment.

 

May 1991 to Sept 1992:      Senior Architect, Bull World-Wide Information Systems, Billerica, MA

1.       Proposed to the CASE group the development of a collection of tools for simplifying the design and implementation of distributed client/server applications.

2.       As chief architect, developed and elaborated the long-term architectural vision for the work of about 20 engineers building the Bull Professional Workstation Environment.

 

Dec 1984 to Apr 1991:      Principal Engineer, Digital Equipment Corporation, Marlboro, MA

1.       Project leader and principal architect for a collaborative work support system for remote service delivery based on an X11-based multi-display server.

2.       Designed and implemented a language for expert system development that resulted in two patents awards (one with other engineers in the team).

 

Apr 1981 to Dec 1984:      Asst. Professor, Computer and Info Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

1.       Consulted for a variety of clients, both government and private companies.

2.       Developed and taught courses in Design of Human-Computer Interfaces, and Systems Analysis and Design. Conducted a research seminar in the Methodological Issues in studying Human-Computer Interfaces.

 

Sep 1974 to Apr 1981:      Ph.D.,, School  of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

1.       Designed, implemented, and evaluated Sked, a schema-based editor for the ZOG hypertext system.

2.       Other projects: the ZOG Hypertext system, the toolkit for the Computer Aids to Human Translation project, Intractable Production System project (resulted in the OPS languages).

 

Other

Member of ACM and IEEE since 1975.

Married.  US Citizen.  Black Belt, Shotokan Karate, 1978.  Stock-market investor since 1985.